If I Could Be Serious For A Moment 02.03.09: The Fame Game

Posted by Chris Lansdell on 02.03.2009

WrestleMania and celebrities have long gone hand-in-hand. Will it continue this year? Will this year top prior efforts?

Greetings, humanity! Thank you for joining me for If I Could Be Serious For A Moment, your weekly dose of intelligent wrestling discourse. I was glad to see that some discussion had originated from last week's column, which after all was the point of it. I'll be responding to comments next week. In the meantime, I want to have a look at a topic that has been in the news this week. First, let's take care of the

BANNER!

Celebrity (in) Jeopardy

Ever since Vince McMahon's brainchild of WrestleMania came to fruition, there have been celebrities involved in professional wrestling. From ring announcers to referees to getting dropped on your head by Kane, the roles have been many and varied. Since we're on the Road to WrestleMania, and since the big story around it right now is about Mickey Rourke and his on-again, off-again match with Chris Jericho, I figure we'll look at celebrities being involved in matches. And believe me, there are enough of them to fill a column.

The sole reason to include celebrities in wrestling is to increase publicity. Even a second- or third-tier celebrity showing up at a pay per view can bump buyrates and bring in casual fans who also happen to be fans of said celeb.

Alas, the decision to stick with people who wrestled means we won't be discussing Pete Rose, Pamela Anderson, Cyndi Lauper, Robocop, Leslie Nielsen or Chuckie in detail. You can't imagine how disappointed I am to have to leave them out.

Pitying the fools

The only celebrity to compete at 2 WrestleManias was also the first to compete at a WrestleMania. Mr. T wrestled as the partner of Hulk Hogan against Roddy Piper and Paul Orndorff at WrestleMania I, then fought Piper in a boxing match at Mania II. These two events were riddled with appearances by everyone from Walter Payton to Liberace, and the fact that Mr. T couldn't wrestle was neither here nor there. His mere presence alongside the marketing juggernaut that was Hulk Hogan added even more weight to the event. Prior to WrestleMania, Hogan and Mr T made numerous appearances to promote it, including hosting Saturday Night Live. It not only set a precedent for marketing and for putting sufficiently buff celebs in the ring, but it also set a benchmark for success: Mania I drew big numbers and a lot of mainstream attention, and a lot of that can be attributed to the involvement of names like Mr. T.

With Mania II being spread over 3 venues, each one needed a main event. Piper-Mr. T in a boxing match to headline the Nassau Coliseum part of the card might have sounded like a great idea at the time, but I very much doubt anyone today would make a boxing match the main event of ANY wrestling pay per view, let alone WrestleMania. That said, it did its job. Piper took the DQ loss but still looked like the top evil heel as he bodyslammed Mr T and ended up standing tall. Before the days of 13 PPVs a year and rushed angles, this was a natural conclusion to the events of the previous WrestleMania.

Taylor-made for success

From the first to the best. Not many NFL fans would argue if you mentioned Lawrence Taylor as one of the all-time greats. In a similar vein, not many wrestling fans would argue if you said the LT-Bam Bam Bigelow match that closed out Mania XI was the best celebrity-wrestler match so far. Despite the fact that LT damn near broke his fool neck coming off the top for the finish, Bam Bam carried him to a very respectable match and bumped for him when necessary. LT's selling was very good for an amateur, and the flying shoulder tackle that won the match looked great. Until he landed head-first, that is.

LT was successful because he was a natural athlete and he was used to being hit hard by large men, as well as hitting large men very hard. This is part of the reason that WWE prefers to hire wrestlers with a pro sports background: you can teach selling and mic work, but you can't teach athleticism. Having pro football players in LT's corner to counteract the Million $ Team added an escape clause to the match in case things started to go badly, but fortunately it wasn't needed.

As with the Mr. T matches, it's highly unlikely that a celeb match would ever close out another WrestleMania, but this one certainly did a better job.

I think he wants to break Show's jaw

Those who disagree with LT-Bam Bam as the best celeb match will cite this one from Mania 24. The premise for the match was solid: Big Show wanted to kill Rey Misterio. Mayweather did not like that idea. Mayweather and Show face off, Mayweather breaks Show's nose. Instant feud. What hurt the match was when WWE insisted on letting Mayweather handle a live microphone. It was horrible.

The inflated amount that WWE suggested was being paid to Floyd added a nice twist to the story in the mainstream media. For the first time since Benoit, WWE was in the news for something positive, and it lead to big numbers and record-breaking attendance for the event and its satellite events. The match itself was on a hiding to nothing, and part of the reason that it got favourable reviews was that so little was expected from a 400+ pound 7-foot wrestler facing a 5 foot 8 150-pound boxer. The geniuses in WWE were able to spin a good story out of this mess-in-waiting, and as a result set the stage for future matches involving non-wrestlers.

The next game is called Run Away and it's for Drew

It's 2001. The WWE is stacked with main event talent, and a lot of it is in the Royal Rumble. So the natural choice to fill an empty spot in the Rumble match was that well-known wrestler, that bastion of athleticism, that technical wizard...Drew Carrey? Appearing in a WWE PPV (and ostensibly having a chance to win a WrestleMania main event title shot) to promote an improv comedy PPV that was coming up smacked of WCW, but at least he didn't win. Or eliminate anyone. Or even hit anyone. Drew watched the Hardys eliminate themselves then ran away from Kane as Raven made his way to the ring. Smart guy.

Pop culture, meet DDP and Hogan

WCW was not iummune, oh no. As the nWo angle started to decline, WCW started trying to bring in famous non-wrestlers to partner with Hogan and DDP in PPV main events. Karl Malone, Dennis Rodman and Jay Leno (yes, The Chin himself) all took part and displayed their wrestling acumen at various times. Unfortunately these appearances did little to pop WCW's flagging numbers or to inspire me to write more about them.

Make it RAIN!

TNA had a good idea, really they did. Take a guy who had been suspended for a year from the NFL, a guy who is a wrestling fan, and sign him as a wrestler. You'll gain publicity for your young promotion, and even if he stinks it will make people watch. Unfortunately for TNA, the Tennessee Titans didn't want to play ball. They secured an injunction to make sure Pacman couldn't take any bumps in order to protect their investment, and at that point TNA should have just walked away. Of course, they did the opposite: they gave him a tag team title run, despite doing almost nothing in the ring. Although having Pacman involved with the promotion did attract some mainstream media attention, it too did nothing for the ratings.

Wait…what? Did that just happen?

The Fingerpoke of Doom. Hogan's ego. Refusal to push new talent. All of these have been named as the main reason behind the death of WCW, but one event that is almost universally cited is the crowning of David Arquette as WCW World champion. Yes, the same David Arquette who is best known for marrying Courtney Cox and not dying in the Scream movies.And why did WCW feel this was necessary? Why, to promote a movie of course. You see, Arquette had just released Ready to Rumble, which featured several WCW talents and was invested in by Turner.

First Arquette beat Bischoff on an episode of Nitro. OK, that's fine, he beat a heel non-wrestler on free TV, you shilled your movie, it's done. No, I have a better idea: let's include him in a Thunder main event, a tag team match where the person getting the pin gets the title. Well OK, that lets Jarrett win the belt without pinning DDP. I guess I can live with that. Wait, a better idea: let's make him world champion, giving him the same belt held by Sting, Ric Flair, Lex Luger and Hulk Hogan. Why not? To compound the situation, let's put him over a midcarder who destroys people on the next Nitro (Tank Abbott), and include him in a gimmick match main event at the next pay per view. Genius! We'll sell millions!

Not so much. What makes this even more embarrassing is that Arquette himself, who apparently had been something of a wrestling fan in his youth, tried to talk WCW out of giving him the belt. Now call me old-fashioned, but if the guy you want to make your champion is trying to tell you he shouldn't be champion, that's a pretty good indication that maybe you should give the belt to someone else. And really, such momentous bullshit needs to be immortalised:



Nothing could possibly follow that, but it would be remiss of me not to point out Toby Keith (suplexed and eliminated Jeff Jarrett from a battle royale at TNA's first PPV), Jeff Hammond and Hermie Sadler (NASCAR drivers who wrestled a few times for TNA), Frank Wycheck (NFLer who wrestled for TNA), Akebono (sumo star who fought Big Show at WrestleMania and went on to wrestle for HUSTLE in Japan as the son of Great Muta and Ying Ling-sama) and Butterbean (pile of blubber who owned Bart Gunn).

All that Ram-ains...

Knowing what's gone before, what can we determine about what's to come? Namely, what WILL happen at Mania 25 with Mickey Rourke? The bottom line is publicity: wrestling, in someone's corner or just front row centre, Rourke's presence at the show will bring a ton of attention. Even having an Oscar nominee involved is big news, but if Rourke should happen to actually WIN the Oscar, WWE's publicity will go through the roof. However, I think we're in for more.

No sooner had the initial announcement of Rourke vs Jericho been made than the media started saying that appearing for WWE would cost Rourke any possible shot at an Oscar. My theory is that Rourke and/or his agents panicked and pulled out. Or did they? Bear in mind that the deadline for Oscar votes to be cast is February 17, a Tuesday. That would mean that a prospective Rourke match could be announced any time from that ECW onwards and not jeopardise Rourke's Oscar chances. Having said that, it would make far more sense to announce the match on February 23rd, the night after No Way Out. Can you imagine the hype? Chris Jericho, WWE superstar of the year for 2008 and a former world champion, against Oscar winner Mickey Rourke. Mayweather, LT and Arquette would fade into insignificance by comparison.

Would the match be any good though? Sure it would. Rourke trained as a wrestler for the movie, and by all accounts he trained hard. Afa is not an easy taskmaster, and if there's any truth to his claim that Flair and Piper also helped out then he's got quite the set of teachers. Add to that the fact that Jericho is one of those rare performers that can make anyone look good in a match, and you have the makings of a match that could actually turn some heads.

There's yet more. With Rourke name-dropping Flair and Piper, there's a chance that one or both could appear in Rourke's corner, adding even MORE name-value to the match. And, as pointed out by the inimitable Sforcina...how awesome would the following result be?

Winner: Mickey Rourke via pinfall (Oscar shot)

There's no way to top that. None. So I won't try. Join me next week for the comment edition. Stay Cool, Rock Hard.

Lansdellicious – Out.